Why Whole Foods Stopped Serving Its Beloved Breakfast Buffet Nationwide

Weekday breakfast buffets aren't easy to come by these days — much less good ones without any of the 12 breakfast buffet red flags. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Whole Foods was a reliable morning stop for busy grocery shopping moms and office workers alike who knew they could count on the buffet for their morning fix. Stocked with hot breakfast sandwiches, cheesy and plain scrambled eggs, tofu scramble, French toast, burritos, quiche, potatoes, oatmeal cups, roasted vegetables, bacon, and more, there was something for everyone. But things have changed.

In an effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus disease, Whole Foods (along with most other buffet style food operations like Old Country Buffet) were forced to shut down their food bars — making all-you-can-eat buffets, seemingly, a thing of the past. Although some amount of normalcy has returned, with most buffet restaurants back in operation, the Whole Foods' hot bar has never been the same. While the lunch and dinner buffets have continued on a regular and consistent basis, the hot breakfast items only made a brief resurgence before disappearing completely from most store locations. These days the daily hot breakfast bar only appears in stores where the grocer has the staff and clientele to support it.

More or less, Whole Foods only serves its breakfast buffets in locations where it makes economic sense. While that does take away some of the convenience of knowing you can stop into any store on any given morning and get a hot breakfast (as long as it's before 11 am and they haven't already switched to lunch), all hope isn't lost. There are still some locations out there where that's still possible. For instance, Whole Foods locations located on college campuses or nearby hospitals and office buildings, tend to be more likely to serve breakfast because they have the amount of regular customers to financially support it.

While some locations serve a limited breakfast menu, many employees have reported that their stores in California, Colorado, Indiana and both the south and northeast of the United States serve a full breakfast buffet. But, that isn't to say you'll find all of the same popular Whole Foods hot bar items you could before. Ranging between $8.99 and $13.99 per pound, you might find anything from biscuits and gravy and breakfast potatoes or hashbrowns and crispy bacon, breakfast sausages, egg scrambles, and pancakes. Customers seem to really enjoy the burritos and the $5 breakfast sandwiches in particular, which seem to be more consistently served than other items, but you still might not find them at every location.